Yet another good read

I have finally finished Brand Jesus mentioned in previous posts. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Reaching into the high stack of "to reads," I came out with The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian & the Risk of Commitment , another InternetMonk recommendation.

Here are a few paragraphs that struck home with me (being often guilty as I am):

Too many wounded Christians also indulge in a condescending attitude. There is a sarcastic bite to their use of the phrase "the church" that suggests they bear no responsibility for its failings. Whether through their exposure to secular critics of religion, their greater intelligence, or their broader experience, they have, thankfully, been liberated from the pathetic narrowness which still afflicts others. Adapting the superior attitude they elsewhere condemn, they, like the Pharisee in Christ's parable (Luke 18:11), thank God that they are not like other Christians: narrow, legalistic, unsophisti­cated.

Narrowness, hypocrisy, intolerance aplenty have always been in the church, which is to say the church has always been made up of human beings. But there has always been the Spirit of God, also, moving to work His will in His ways, human failure notwithstanding. One manifestation of that spirit, missing from the standard caricature of the church, is the genuine concern it often feels for the struggling Christian, even if that concern is sometimes shown in heavy-handed ways.

The church often feels like the rescuer trying to talk the would-be suicide victim off the ledge. Nothing could be clearer to the rescuer than that jumping, no matter what the reasons, would be a disastrously wrong decision. Talk about respecting the person's right to choose, or the possibility that he might survive the jump after all, strikes the rescuer as irrelevant, irresponsible, even criminal. The church, in short, often cares about the ultimate fate of the dissenter in a way no one else ever will. Those who would "free" him or her from religious illusion seemingly have very little to offer in place of faith, being not much different from those in the street who shout for the person to jump.

The reflective Christian's relationship to the church, then, is varied and complex. Much of the difficulty that arises stems from an inadequate awareness on both sides of the dual nature of the church as an instrument of God's work and, at the same time, a culturally bound monument to human fallenness.

Many accede to the church's identification of its ways with God's ways. They are presented with an entire package labeled "the Christian faith," which is actually composed of many extra elements—the idiosyncratic traditions of that specific branch of Christendom, particular political and social views, a set of attitudes toward the larger culture, personal preferences and prejudices, and so on.

The Christian in this situation too often adopts the false either-or thinking of the subculture. Some keep their questions and concerns concealed, as likely to condemn themselves for lack of faith as to question whether the concept of faith they have been presented is adequate. Like rape victims who suffer the added trauma of being badgered by a defense lawyer at a trial, many wounded Christians have learned that revealing their thoughts compounds their difficulties, especially in the conservative church.

Others, as they find themselves in ever greater tension with their environment, feel they must either silence a fundamental part of themselves and conform to expectations, or reject the entire package they have been offered and make do without God. They have internalized the often inaccurate equation of their church and subculture with God and His work, and in rejecting one, they mistakenly reject the other.

These people need to understand what Kierkegaard under­stood so well: not only is Christendom not synonymous with a life in Christ, following Christ may well require rejecting parts of Christendom. The church is continually tempted to confuse its mission to spread and embody the "good news" with the need every organization feels to perpetuate and en­hance itself. Karl Earth identified the difference when he said, "Ministration of the word is not administration, however smoothly it may go." 3 The reflective Christian should be sensi­tive to the difference as well, affirming and committing himself or herself to those parts of a Christian subculture which hon­estly attempt to do God's work, while staying free, as much as possible, from the inevitable distortions that abound wher­ever human beings are found.

I constantly have to fight against closed-mindedness. I pride myself as being open-minded then discover how selective that is. There are a few doctrines/beliefs that I resist contrary views. But, then, that's being human (I hope I'm not alone).

Dan